« Friday free media | Home | Roster complete for Superstar Seminar in Liverpool, England »
Saturday media review
By Zach Arnold | January 6, 2007
- MMA California: Next StrikeForce show is on 2/10 at the San Jose Civic Auditorium (the Sharks aren’t playing hockey on that date at HP Pavilion — but another show could be happening at the building, or the more likely scenario is that SF has HP booked for April on PPV and decided to run a smaller-scale show in the city on 2/10 rather than run HP and totally burn the city out in terms of attendance)
- The Houston Chronicle: UFC to strengthen stable of fighters in 2007 (UFC Junkie has reaction to this story here)
- The Fresno Bee: Butterbean swings back into the Valley
- Fox Sports: Make the fights and they will come
- Hawaii Business Magazine: Egan Inoue opens up The Studio fitness center
- Sherdog: Elite XC 2/10 Southaven card line-up
- Eastside Boxing: Boxing and the UFC – are they really that different?
- UFC HP: Rampage comes to the UFC, and the Octagon will never be the same
- Tokyo Sports (translated): PRIDE wants WWE wrestlers for US shows (there is definitely interest by PRIDE to make this happen)
- Komikazee: MMA Smackdown #5 w/ Ben Rothwell
- Events: Next ICON Sports show in Hawaii will take place on 2/9. This in addition to StrikeForce on 2/10, Elite XC on 2/10, etc. and what you have is a very full calendar for February.
Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 13 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The Pride-WWE article from Tokyo Sports is hilariously out of touch with reality.
“The WWE has fighters suitable for MAA such as the Undertaker, Batista, and Umaga, so it’s prepared for a combat mission in PRIDE anytime.”
If Pride, Tokyo Sports, or anyone else thinks for one minute that WWE is going to put any of its stars in a shootfight environment where they could actually get their asses kicked, they’re in for a surprise.
The Wrestling Observer has reported in recent weeks that WWE’s interest as far as interpromotional angles would be primarily to have Pride fighters come in to WWE and work pro wrestling feuds with WWE wrestlers, with the WWE wrestlers going over. Can you imagine that? Oh, here comes Wanderlei Silva! Oh no, Vince McMahon’s son-in-law Triple H hits him with the Pedigree and pins him 1-2-3! What a joke.
Ivan is right, the WWE will not have any of it’s stars put in a situaiton where:
A) They could be hurt while not actually performing for the company
&
B) They would be exposed as not being actual tough guys.
The mention of the Undertaker almost caused me to spit coffee on my computer. Taker can barely move, much less compete in legit fighting. I don’t know if he could even be medically cleared.
Yea but Taker is a diehard MMA ethusiast AND a “self proclaimed” tough guy. To be honest I wouldnt be suprised if the WWE did send a wrestler or two to MMA (im thinking more of the Umaga level wrestlers, those who the WWE arent too high on anymore and are thus expendable to be killed in PRIDE). Its a win/ win for WWE anyway, send a guy that isnt popular with the fans to PRIDE, if he loses, no big deal he wil at least get some exposure and the WWE will “be part of” the MMA bandwagon, if he wins then hell he’s a badass. NJPW did it early in 2000 (to mostly disasterous results) when PRIDE started taking off in Japan whose to say Vince wont do the same?
I swear I thought I read something where Sakakibara said he was looking for actual talented viable superheavyweight fighters not of the Akebono level of talent. If he thinks that WWE pro wrestlers are of higher skill, then he’s smoking some good stuff. Apparently he doesn’t remember how badly O’Haire got beat down and looked bad in the process. And that was from Butterbean, who isn’t even near the middle echelon in MMA. He also doesn’t remember that WWE tried to do something akin to shoot fighting with “Brawl for All”, where their winner, “Bart Gunn” got smashed and humiliated by Butterbean too.
Like everyone else is saying, its going to a be a stupid freakshow division. Pride loses credibility in the US with this and they are blind or plain desparate if they don’t see that or don’t want to see that.
A super heavyweight freakshow division with pro wrestlers duking it out would be pretty entertaining though. It’d barely be considered MMA, but I’d watch :-p
It’s not happening, or at least not with anyone that WWE has any interest in ever promoting as a pro wrestler.
Exactly my point, right now word is Umaga has little value to the WWE, so instead of jobbing him out why not just feed him to some PRIDE guys. Hell actually tghey signed Slyvester Terkay, I think he would be perfect to bein PRIDE (considering he has MMA background experienc ein K-1).
I thought it was most hilarious they mentioned Batista as being a tough guy. He would get KILLED. I don’t care how big and strong he is, he would get killed. He is old, and he is totally injury prone. Hell, look at Ricardo Morais. He is bigger and stronger than Batista, and smaller guys have handled him very well.
There really isn’t anybody in the WWE that can compete at the current level of MMA. Sadly, the WWE is so out of touch with what the fans want, that they can’t see beyond their own nose… Well, except HHH, cause his nose is so big.
I wonder if Strikeforce moving to such a small arena is a sign of them being a “small” MMA company from now on. Without a TV deal, they can only be so big.
The Showtime MMA card is very weak. And if you check out Ticketmaster.com, the ticket sales are very poor. Not a good sign, especially considering that the IFL was able to have such a solid attendance so easily, and Showtime MMA is paying their fighters so much.
I agree Showtime is already starting out badly but hey no worst than Strikeforce who is probably movign to a smaller venue because they couldnt force Shamrock to face Baroni.
Josh – the Feb. date for SF has nothing to do with Baroni/Shamrock. That fight was set for HP Pavilion in April. The Feb. date for SF is purely a promotional decision based on whether or not to run in SJ in a smaller building or try a bigger building (like they did in Fresno) in another city.
They have been spending months building Umaga as a monster heel in WWE. There is zero chance that they are going to put him in a shoot fighting situation, nor would they ever do that with Undertaker or Batista under any circumstances, which further demonstrates that the author of the Tokyo Sports article has no idea what he’s talking about.
SYLVESTER TERKAY.
Also, Strikeforce show on Feb 10 is interesting, as it means they won’t begin hype for April(or perhaps it’ll be pushed back to May or June) until AFTER that event, by which time they’ll know if Frank Shamrock is ok to go post-Renzo.